Mission Accomplished

My goal over the Thanksgiving holiday was to read Fritz Stern's "My Five Germanys", and I did it. The book was interesting in a number of ways. First, it provided a good overview of 20th century German history, and second, it was a rather complete compendium of Stern's professional life, both as a Columbia University professor, and as a writer and speaker on topics related to German history. For Stern, throughout his life, associated with very accomplished people, whether they be German politicians or cultural leaders, German refugees in this country, or fellow historians, as Columbia and elsewhere.

Stern tells the story of his early years in Breslau (now Wroclaw, Poland), and his coming to this country in 1938 at age 12 with his parents and older sister. His story was different from many you read, because although both sides of his family had been Jewish, both of his parents, as well as one set of grandparents, had converted and been baptized, as was he at birth. Never being religious (although clearly celebrating Christian holidays), his Jewish identity was really defined by the Nazis, and as time went on, he considered himself more Jewish than Christian (although his Jewishness was never religious or ritualistic). And, which I had not thought about, many, and perhaps most, of his parents' friends in and from Germany were also baptized Christians with Jewish backgrounds.

But all of this made for confusion. Germany, America. Jewish, Christian. And this confusion more than anything else led Stern to become a historian of Germany. His entire career seems to have necessarily be dedicated to the question as to how Nazism could have arisen as it did in this very civilized nation, and now that the war has been over for 60 years, how should Americans and/or Jews react to Germany.

In this, for all of his erudition and study, and perhaps because of it, he has no clear answers. He is certainly a strong anti-Nazi; he is equally a strong anti-Communist. But he also does not believe that the Hitler years were inevitable, nor that there is any clear flaw in the German character.

He believes, and I tend to agree with him, that historical trends develop as a result of a combination of earlier historical trends, but that going from stage A to stage B is never inevitable, that accident and chance play their roles, and that strong figures tilt the balance, sometimes for good and sometimes for evil. Hitler was not necessary, he says, but his rise was understandable. The question is for him, as it is for many, how to make sure that similar causes do not result in similar effects. For this reason, economic chaos, political unrest, and social problems are perhaps more worrisome for Stern than for others, and for this reason, he has tended to speak his mind, whether his opinion is the popular one or not.

There is a lot of namedropping in this book. This is not surprising, because Stern knows everyone (at least everyone other than Hollywood stars, who do not play a role). While this could be bothersome, I did not find it so, because everyone he mentions fits into a context and he deals with them as professionals (writers, teachers, politicians, etc.) and not as subject for gossip mongering.

And, because he is extraordinarily complimentary to most of them. I don't know if I have ever read a book by an academic, where so much praise is laid upon those who might be considered his competitors.

Stern clearly comes down as a middle of the roader, when it comes to judging his German Heimat. His venom (except for that now and then lashing out at Bush, father and son) is saved for Hannah Arendt, for whom he appears to have little respect on any level, as being too much of an apologist for evil, and Daniel Goldhagen, whose book concluding, so to speak, that Germans have an indelible anti-Semitic gene in their makeup, as trying to turn grays into black and white.

I recommend this book highly, if you like this kind of thing. Maybe next Thanksgiving.